Someones Lying :)

From the looks of our survey there are some big time fibbers posting on the blog. Maybe I need to do a 10 week sermon series on what the truth is......

Saw this today and wow....is it true.

Saw this post on Perry Nobles Blog today......how true it is......this is not just true for people in leadership though.....it's true for everyone......Remember in a previous post I tried to make the point that Delayed Obedience is Disobedience.....check out what Perry has to say......one of these days I have got to meet this dude.....he can read my mind and heart....

"Biggest Mistakes I’ve Made As A Leader–Part One

One of the privileges I have is getting to meet with and pour into the staff that God has given me the privilege of leading. About once a week I assemble a group of people who do not directly report to me for a time where we discuss leadership issues…they ask questions and I try my best to answer them. (God has placed some REALLY sharp people on this staff!)

One of the questions that often arises is, “What are some the biggest mistakes you would say you’ve made is a leader?” I thought I would take a shot at answering that one on this site…

#1 - Not Listening To The Holy Spirit

There are times that God will give a leader insight that He gives to no one else–THUS the reason for making him the leader. And, in my opinion, THE toughest time to lead is when you KNOW what God has said…but no one else is quite seeing it the way you do.

David faced this in I Samuel 24:1-7 when Saul was “delivered” into his hands. The “leaders” around him were pressing him to make a decision–THEY EVEN HAD BIBLE VERSES to back up their desires…but David just KNEW in His heart what God had said…and he was unwilling to violate that.

THE biggest mistakes I’ve ever made is when God clearly said to do (or not to do) something and I went against His command because I could not get everyone to agree…or because it just didn’t make sense.

#2 - Not Being Who God Called Me To Be

When I first began in ministry I really struggled with being the unique creation that God called me to be. I wasted a ton of time trying to be other people because I was convinced that I could never be the man who I felt was trapped inside of me and was desperate to come out.

God didn’t call me to be anyone but me…and when I try to imitate others rather than gravitate towards the character of Christ uniquely displayed in me…I dishonor my Creator!"

Sunday Mind Dump

You have gotta love controlled chaos!

I love seeing the kids do there thing during our family worship experiences! It's really fun. The funny thing about having kids lead is, you never know what you're going to get. Today that ranged from kids falling (or jumping) out of their boat prop to singing slightly off key to the teachers getting really nervous about speaking in front of the adults. It's all good and it's all fun.

So let's dump:

*Did we have a full house today or what?
*Thank you to everyone who helped make today possible.
*Giving has be stellar over the last few months!
*We had our highest attendance ever today!
*Really excited about the next few months. Some great things coming.
*Next week we are going to bring it with our new series iMarriage. It's going to be great.
*Gotta love Diaggios pizza. As many props as we give them you'd think we'd get a sweeter deal on the pies!

I am watching the second day of the NFL draft with the windows open and a cool breeze. April is taking a nap and life is good.

See You All Soon!

Truthiness

One thing I love is good ole fashioned sarcastic humor when done really well. There is no one better at it than Steven Colbert. A few years ago he invited this word "truthiness." Which basically means something that is sort of true or has elements of the truth in it.

I was thinking today that many of us have a truthiness sort of relationship with Jesus. We are sort of have a relationship with him. We sorta don't it depends on how much we need him at any given moment.

The Bible is pretty clear that "truthiness" isn't going to cut it. In fact, the Bible tells us that for those of us who call ourselves Christians we need to be either hot or cold. God won't except a lukewarm kind of faith or life. Just a reality check for all of us. Are you living a true life? Or a life full of "truthiness?"

We're Close To Something Big

Over the last few months I have felt a stirring in my soul about Real Life being close to some really big things happening in terms of ministry and growth. I am sitting here at the computer this afternoon and I am really overwhelmed at just how close we are. All I can say is man God is so good. He has provided some amazing things.

How about this for a first year recap:

1. We held our first practice worship service a year ago today. All but a small handful of the people at that first practice service are still with us. Many of those people have taken on new ministries and are leading them with amazing success.

2. We have more than doubled in size. If you take the core group we started with and add in the new folks that call Real Life home we have more than doubled in a year.

3. We have exceeded our budget in terms of income every month since we started. Even in the midst of a bad economy we are doing quite well.

4. We have a great band. Churches 10 times our size wish they had the talent we do. Trust me, I have heard them say it.

5. We have some of the coolest people on the planet as members of our church.

6. We have a great building at a killer price.

7. We have been given so much in terms of technology it's almost scarry. Wait until we really get cooking on it. We will be the MOST CUTTING EDGE CHURCH IN TOLEDO. I can promise you that.

8. In terms of numbers, we baptized half of our church in 2007.

9. We have one of the best kids ministries in town. Period. I have never heard our kids come out of kids church saying they didn't have fun.

10. We have some of the best volunteers in the world. Most people never see what Shelly, April, Shelly #2, Carla, John, Martha, Jackie, Chelsea, Jake, Tony, Aaron, and everyone else I forgot to mention do. I am humbled to be your Pastor. Thank You!

Sunday Mind Dump

Not too bad of a day for most Real Lifers. For me, today was one of those days were everything was going wrong. Our Power Point person had a migrane and wasn't able to make it to church so I had to do that Power Point. The presentation was probably 80% correct. It's really tough to put one together on the fly when it's not really your thing!

• Finished the series today. I am pretty happy with how things turned out. We have had some breakthroughs and that is awesome to see.
• The music has steadily gotten better. We have two things the band is going to have to begin to address. First, dynamics. They need to build songs up and tear them down a little better. No complaint's here, it's just something that comes with musical maturity. The other thing is they need to do a better job leading people in worship as opposed to playing songs. Part of that comes with dynamics the other part is just knowing what to do and when to do it. If you are a worship leader or a worshiper you'll know what I am talking about
• Next week is Family Worship Experience. Talk about fun! I am going to work on Diaggios pizza....no promises though....they are great but a little pricey!
• Our next series is called iMarriage. It might very well be the most important series we have ever done. Get your friends and family there. IT IS GOING TO BE AWESOME~~
• Small group in 45 minutes! I love small groups!! Sad though we are going to take a little time off for the summer. Don't worry, we have a ton of other things going on. Trust me a ton!
• Looks like we are in go mode for a few events:

1. A church wide garage sale the weekend before Memorial Day. We'll run it from 9-3. We are going to do free food for anyone who comes out and just have a ball with it. Start boxing up your stuff now!
2. May 31'st we are going to do a guys only Texas Hold Em tournament. We have some great idea's for prizes. That is going to be a huge event. We have some plans for doing this again in the future and they are going to blow you away! I promise....and you can quote me on that!
3. We are planning a huge church picnic for this summer. Still a little fuzzy on the dates but it's going to be huge with live music and tons of great food. I know you all like food.

• Since there were no complaints voiced about the Tony Trezzo nomination for the leadership team his appointment will become official at the end of the month. Speak or forever hold your peace.
  
• On a personal note. I only have 29 more school days left. How awesome is that?
• My wife has been awesome lately. She is under quite a bit of stress trying to prepare herself for the other band tryout. She's taking it all well. And the keyboard playing sounds good too. She actually made the comment "I kinda like playing this thing" last night. I smiled.
  

The Beginning of the END!

I knew I'd hook ya with the title!

Ok, so this week we are closing out our series based on 6 of Jesus most famous miracles. As we are learning our obedience to what God is asking of us is a huge thing. We have found plenty of examples of God providing for his people upon their obedience.

I thought I would take a few minutes and lay out some of the things God is hitting me with.

1. I need to be more intentional about my personal growth as a Pastor and Leader. I run in stages where I get focused about growing but God is challenging me to spend more time regularly growing.
2. I need to be more intentional about my quiet time with Him. I've been pretty busy lately and God's been hitting me with the notion of I am leaning too much on my strengths, talents, and abilities and that I am not sold out enough to his. This is hitting me pretty hard right now and it's something I need to deal with, in that respect most people in ministry need to deal with on a regular basis.
3. I need to be more intentional about my alone time with my wife. It seems like we are always together and that is a good thing. The problem is much of what we do together is ministry related. We and by we I mean I, need to schedule more time where the phones are turned off and we are doing more couple stuff.
4. I need to be more intentional about forming better quality relationships with the people at church. I have a few close friends and I need to do a better job getting outside of that circle. Or better said, I need to expand that circle of friendships making more room for the awesome people God has brought into Real Life.

So that's me....what is God asking you to do at this point in your life?

What a day

I had a couple of days off from my teaching gig this week due to our furnace needing some repair. It's always cool to have a little time of from school. The tough part is my kids at school loose their stinking minds whenever I am not around. It seriously takes me a week to get the kids back into the routine after I am gone.

UGH!

Delayed Obedience is Disobedience

Doing some working on our message for next week and God began to hit me with this notion that our delayed obedience to him is actually the same thing as direct disobedience. Many times we feel a prodding to do something on God's behalf. The problem is that we want to second guess and wait on everything. The result is that we end up in a state of delayed obedience to what God would have us doing.

Think about it like this.

If you tell your kid to do the dishes and they replied back Let me pray about that. Then they actually get to it in a few days. As a parent, you'd consider that your child was not being particularly obedient if they took 3 days to do something simple. I think for us as people, we need to be quicker to action. When God asks us to do something we ought to get at it. Our failure to act is disobedience pure and simple. I am glad we serve a God that has more patience than most of us as parents have.

Sunday Mind Dump

What a great day. Today was one of those church days that are just so cool. Things went really smooth. The band was together no issues with sound. The computers all worked. And we had a full house. How cool is that?

After church we had a huge potluck with tons of chicken and side dishes. Then most of the church went bowling. Needless to say I was pretty spent when we got home today.

So lets dump:

• The grandparents ears did not bleed at church today so that went well:)
• A nice sized crowd today. You have to like that.
• The food was great.
• I am getting excited about the next family worship experience. Some great stuff planned.
• I stink at bowling.
  
• Our furnace went out again today. Something else is broken. Time to dip into the emergency fund. Although it's a relatively cheap fix.
• Next week ends our Miracles series. The message next week is awesome. I can't wait. I wish I could give it now.

I am spent. See everyone soon!

Tomorrow is going to be interesting....

Ok...here is the deal.....my 80 year old grandparents are going come and visit our church. They are really great people but VERY TRADITIONAL...

It is going to be really interesting to see the kind of response we get out of them. I think for the most part they'll be pleasantly surprised. We are a pretty mild bunch and the music is really good. I know that they freak over coffee and treats in the sanctuary.....I guess they'll have to get used tot that.....I know one thing.....you'll be able to tell which folks they are pretty easily!!

Did I mention they're pretty traditional?

See You all tomorrow!

Doing a little work @ work

Doing a little work today while my students were watching the movie Pearl Harbor. This June we are going to partner with a whole bunch of churches (as of right now there are over 200) all across the country for a month long series called "My Prayer." I sat down with no agenda and just said ok God, speak through me and began to write. I have to say whenever you do that some pretty good things come out. Our message for the series is going to be on church unity. The message is called Make us one church.

I am really excited about it. As I was writing I just got a little glimpse at how grieved God is when we allow our differences to divide us as a church. I don't want to give too much of it away or why bother coming right? It's going to be a great month. In fact, we just have some awesome things in general over the next 4 months.

Things pastors just don't want to admit

There are some things in life that people in ministry just don't want to admit. I'll give you my top 5

5. Pastors like to please people.
Sometimes we do that by doing things we know we shouldn't do because it doesn't fit into what God is calling us to do and be as a church. We know better but sometimes we cave. It always hurts us more in the long run but do it anyway.

4. We want to be friends with you.
Really we do, but remember friendship is a give and take thing. We have a hard time being our real selves if you are going to treat us like a pastor when we are just hanging out. If you want to be our friend then be one. Quit trying to act perfect. Trust me, we know that your not and neither are we. We have hang ups and things that we are working on too. If you really want to be our friend you won't judge us on the stuff we are working on. It's called grace. We extend it to you, if you want to be our friends extend it to us.

3. Sometimes we question.
That's right. We don't always have the answers to everything. We wish we did but we can't answer everything. The best we can say is that we trust God and we'll seek him for an answer.

2. We work too hard.
Sometimes we put way to much time into our church and into our ministry. Often that is at the expense of our family. Believe it or not, pastors burn out at a very high rate. Ministry is a difficult job. We will lose many more battles than we will win. Most people never see the pain we see and most people never feel the hurt we feel. If you want to help see #4 be a real friend and support us.

1. We think more money is a solution.
This one really hurts but it's true. We get caught in the trap thinking if we only had more cash we could do XYZ. It should never come to that but it does. Remember we are people too. Many of us dream big and then start fretting about how we are going to pay for it. Instead we need to dream big and wait on God.

I'd love to hear your comments. Feel free to post them for our discussion!

A Great post from Perry Noble

I found this post on a blog of a blog and loved it. The Original author is Perry Noble Tell me if we don't have some room yet to grow!

15 SIGNS THAT YOU (OR YOUR CHURCH) LACKS VISION

#15 - No one is ever challenged to radically rearrange their lives to be a part of what God is doing.

#14 - God hasn’t asked you to give something up.

#13 - Everyone in your church is perfect. (If you are truly reaching lost people then you will discover that ministry is messy.)

#12 - Nothing in regards to how you lead has changed in the past year.

#11 - When your youth group wants to do something you make them have a bake sale in front of Wal Mart–but when your senior adults want to do something the church covers the cost; after all, they are tithers! (And that same church will wonder why “the youth don’t come to church anymore.”)

#10 - You always find something wrong with ministries that are seeing fruit.

#9 - You can do everything you have in front of you WITHOUT the help of God AND others.

#8 - You spend more time on other churches websites than you do reading your Bible.

#7 - You think the answer to every problem is, “If we just had more money.”

#6 - No one has ever left your church.

#5 - You continually call other churches begging them for money.

#4 - You allow people with money to dictate the way you spend your time and the direction of the church.

#3 - When you go to a conference and come back and announce “we are changing everything” because you have received INSPIRATION not REVELATION.

#2 - You’ve never spent sleepless nights wondering, “How in heck are we going to do this? Seriously, I told our church we were going to do WHAT?”

#1 - You worry more about keeping the people in your church happy then you do about pleasing God and speaking the truth.

What a day

How awesome it is outside. 70 and sunny on April 7th. How cool is that!

Sunday Mind Dump

I personally had a great time at church today. We had much smaller crowds than we usually do but we had several families out today. Some where on a mini vacation, some were just out but we missed them none the less. We did hit several big time things this morning that are going to be up and coming, to be honest, we are really excited about them. So Let's Dump!

• Next week is our after service potluck and bowling outing. In church speak, it doesn't get any better than that does it? Food and bowling!
• At the end of the month we have our family worship experience. Those are a blast and this one is going to be be really neat.
• We are planning a manly man Texas Hold Em tournament for May 31st. It is going to be a 32 man tournament with a bracket that resembles an NCAA basketball bracket. Talk about fun.
• We are working on a women's Bible study that is going to kick off in May. That has some serious potential to rock the worlds of some women in our area.
• We talked about adding Tony Trezzo to the leadership team at Real Life. He is a great guy and is going to do some great things here.
• The message was a little heavier this morning. Sometimes we all need that. Hope everyone was able to get something out of it.
  

Looking forward to the next couple of months. We have some really big things planned. In June we are going to partner with literally thousands of churches all across the country for something called "One Prayer." This partnering has the chance to change the face of the church in America. I am pumped about it.

Fun Nght

We had a fun night worshiping last night. It was a little odd not having Amanda on Keys but we managed. I am sure she is really missing us guys teasing her! Not!

The Band & The Honor

The band is playing at another church tonight. I really enjoy the honor of getting to lead worship and put on concerts in other churches. For one, it's just plain cool that I get to go out and lead worship with a great group of guys. Another thing I really just dig is visiting other churches on a regular basis. Most pastors never get that chance. As a result, they get pretty wrapped up in their way of doing things being the right way to do things.

Seeing God move in more than just our home church helps keep the proper perspective. The fact that God inhabits that praises of his people. Whether they be charismatic or a little more liturgical, seeker friendly or traditional. None of that matters.

What does matter is that we are true to who God has called us to be. Both as people and as a church. Is it fun to go lead worship in places that are more expressive during worship? Yep, but it's also fun and just as much of an honor to lead worship in places that are more reflective in nature.

The key is this. We need to learn to never knock or discredit another church or ministry simply because they are not like us. God uses all of us as people and all churches to accomplish his mission here on earth. I am honored that I get to play a part!

We are in....

Got an email last week from the people at Lifechurch.tv. They are putting together a nationwide thing in June called One Prayer. It's all about if you could have one prayer for your church it would be ___________.

You can check out the details here: www.lifechurch.tv/one-prayer

If I know Lifechurch this is going to be huge and I am glad we get to be a part of it.

Business Meeting Goodies

We had our monthly business meeting tonight and the leadership team all agreed on some basic things in terms of a few new things we are going to be doing. There is way too much to list here but we are adding three new ministries to the church. So here goes.

1. A Womens Marketplace ministry: So here is the deal. Martha is going to conduct a weekly brown bag luncheon for women. She'll be starting this may doing a weekly study. She is going to personally visit 50-100 businesses inviting all the women to come and enjoy this time of encouragement and fellowship.
2. Graceland services: Ok, I know you love the name as much as I do. Here is the deal. Real Life will do a Saturday night service every other month starting in June. Graceland services will focus much more attention on worship. Instead of doing four or five worship songs we'll do eight or ten. We'll also have time for communion, prayer, and fellowship by doing a potluck dinner afterwards. Graceland services will be one more avenue for us to not only connect with God and each other, they'll be a time when we can invite our friends and family to connect with God on a personal and more intimate level. Our prayer is that Graceland services will also be a place were ministry workers not just from our church but from other churches will be able to come and get refreshed and renewed to go back out and serve others.
3. Man Fun: Ok I know that sounds weird, or for some of you a little off. Here is the deal. We want to create a series of events that allow the guys in our church to have some real guy fun and hang out with other guys from church. Here is what we are going to do. We are going to host a Texas Hold Em tournament in June. We are going to go all out and provide prizes for the winners, do up some man food, and invite many manly men to come and have some fun. Each month we'll do something different for the guys to enjoy.
   

We have a ton of other things on the radar but this will get us started for now. I'd love to hear what you think!